


Second Chances

by thirteenghosts (newsbypostcard)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 14:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4183578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/thirteenghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is blinking steadily, figuring out what Sirius means, and then: “No.”</p><p>“Oh, come on!”</p><p>“Absolutely not.”</p><p>“Are you telling me that this boy has a target on his head with ‘Voldemort’s Next Victim’ written all over it and you do <em>not</em> want him to know how to strike first?”</p><p>“We will not,” Remus says, fighting too hard to keep his voice steady, “teach Harry how to kill.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> CW: One mention of self-harm near the end of the piece; themes of violence, death and depression throughout.

  
  


The thing is that Harry is still _just a child_ , and despite appearances that isn’t lost on anyone, even Sirius. What’s more than that, he is a child in a room full of veterans, and the beautiful thing about children is that they will, from time to time, miss certain cues, if you can execute them well enough.

It’s not that Remus and Sirius haven’t communicated in _looks_ before. This is yet another thing they are well experienced with -- furtive looks in corridors and around corners and across dormitories and sideways in classrooms. But it is something else, isn’t it, when Sirius looks at Remus and Remus looks at Sirius, both of their eyes moving in synchronicity to the person who might best understand him.

None of them _likes_ the fact of delicacy, those who have gathered in the room. None of them wants to believe that Harry, this boy who has handled so much, could be unready for anything. But it is difficult to argue with Dumbledore's drive to protect Harry; and since he might be the boy's best chance of survival, everyone is inclined to listen to him. 

Except Sirius.

The conversation goes on and they look at each other, and Remus is saying to Sirius, _He cannot do as we did_ just as Sirius is blinking back at him: _He must._

The furor that follows is based not on the premise that Harry shouldn’t kill, but rather that Harry mustn’t be _taught_ to kill.

The trouble is that Sirius suspects what no others apparently will:

If Harry isn’t taught to kill, won’t it be that much easier to kill _him_ \-- and to do away with the part of Voldemort that may live within him?

  
  
  
  


The first time Remus killed a Death Eater, Sirius overturned a table.

Remus watched, calmly, as objects flew across the room -- held his hands behind his back, and waited.

Sirius’ chest _heaved_. “You _killed_ him,” he said.

Remus blinked, several times. “Yes,” he confirmed.

“You _killed_ him.”

“Yes.”

“You -- raised your wand -- and you said -- _those words_ \--”

“He was going to kill Alice.”

“And you killed him.”

“Yes, I did.”

Sirius watched Remus stand calmly, unyielding, answering his accusations only with confessions, and seemed at a loss. His face crumpled; he was angry and incredulous and uncomprehending; but there was something else there too. Heartbreak? “How can you just,” he asked slowly, through shallow breaths, “stand there, and admit what you’ve done ... as though it’s _all right?_ As though it doesn’t--”

Sirius cut off, and Remus ducked to catch his falling gaze. “As though it doesn’t?” he prompted politely.

“As though it doesn’t _matter_ ,” Sirius hissed, venom filling his tone, “that you _killed a man_?”

Sirius’ words resonated through the room; Remus waited for their echoes to fall.

“Do you think this was the first time I have killed a man, Sirius?” Remus asked calmly. “Are you still this naive after all this time?”

Sirius’ gaze turned fixed, appeared glassy and horrified and even slightly fearful, and Remus thought it was about damned time. “I am a killer,” Remus reminded him, the words sliding smoothly from his throat as though to soothe the blunt impact of the difficult reality. “Let us not forget that at any time, Sirius -- especially not if you are to have me stay with you here.”

Sirius’ expression softened, his breath growing deeper. Remus realized, feeling annoyance for the first time, that Sirius was calming down. “You’re not a killer, Moony,” he said, too lovingly.

Remus blinked harder -- shook the incredible claim out of his head. “What? Are you shitting me? I _am_ a killer. You’ve just walked in here to tell me I am.”

“No. You aren’t. Not at heart.”

“ _Yes_ at heart, Merlin’s beard! I am a fucking werewolf, Sirius! You still haven’t the slightest idea of what that means, have you? Has nothing at all changed since you sent Snape down the corridor believing I might only give him a gentle maiming and send him along?”

“I -- no, I apologized for that--”

“Fucking -- Jesus! You apologized!” Remus set a palm over his own forehead and laughed incredulously. “That settles that, then!”

The snarl of fury and disgust set back into Sirius’ features; Remus suspected he mirrored it. “I have killed, Sirius,” Remus uttered at last, tone deep and guttural. “I … have been killing. Underground. With the wolves.” Sirius held his gaze; each of them huffed at the other. “It has, at times, been the only way to get by. It has, at others, been the _best_ way to get by. Would you like me to apologize for surviving?” Remus ran his tongue along his teeth and swallowed, hoping the taste of bile would go down. “Would you like me to apologize for doing as I was meant to?”

Sirius’ eyes went round and large, though the tension still strained at his mouth and jaw; Remus clenched his teeth and stepped back, raised his hands as though to give Sirius the floor. 

“You meant it,” Sirius said at last; and he looked away with the sudden fullness of his eyes as he finished the sentence. “I heard you, Remus. I heard you say the words. You looked at that man, and you _meant it_ when you killed him.”

Remus looked at him as Sirius stared into the kitchen, and together, they waited. 

He had meant it. He _had_ meant it. It had come from deep within him, a certainty, not shouted but merely stated, with the absolute confidence of combined ability and desire.

“I did,” Remus told him; but for the first time his voice shook, and he put his fingers out to the wall for support.

Sirius stared on into the kitchen, as though processing this confession. “You felt it was _necessary_ ,” he muttered; a question. “The _only_ way to stop him from getting to Alice.”

“Yes,” Remus said.

“And you could not have used something lesser.”

Remus shook his head. “He would have kept coming. Would you really have thought better of me if I’d gone for _Crucio_ instead?”

Sirius stepped suddenly back and spread his hand against his hip, his eyes focusing sharply on Remus and his stance; and Remus quirked his eyebrow, felt his eyes widen in hurt and surprise. 

He would have gone for his wand in another second.

Remus forced a smirk and focused his eyes on the carpet. “Well, now we’re at least getting somewhere, I suppose.”

Sirius adjusted his stance and took a minute -- cracked his neck, straightened out. “That’s not what I meant,” he muttered. “Can you … not bring those words into this house.”

“Merlin,” Remus muttered, shaking his head at the floor.

“No, not Merlin,” Sirius countered. “Un-Merlin. It’s in the rules of the Order, Moony. No Unforgivables.”

“Right.”

“So not in this house. Not in the field. Not ever. I don’t want to hear them.”

“Okay.”

Sirius stared at him; Remus wouldn’t meet his eye. “Okay, _what_.”

“If you don’t want to hear them, Padfoot,” Remus said delicately, “I respectfully suggest that you leave the fucking country.”

Fury flashes across Sirius’ eyes again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Remus began, “that you are fighting in a bloody _war_ against an enemy aiming to _destroy you_. What do you think is going to happen if you try to counter _Avada Kedavra_ with _Expelliarmus_?”

“Not in my house,” Sirius hissed, clenching his fists.

“How do you think that’s going to end for you? How might _Alarte Ascendare_ have helped Alice not be killed? Turns out you can still cast spells in the air.”

“If I die,” Sirius said tensely, “I will at least die with honour.”

Remus, at last, stood stunned into silence. “Outstanding,” he said eventually, when enough time had passed to properly suffocate them both. “Shall we all lay down and die beside you, then?”

Sirius’ eyes bore into him as though trying to light him ablaze. “Are those our only options? Murder or die ourselves?”

“I don’t think,” Remus said, managing to get his voice back to its forced gentility, “that there is a single Death Eater out there, who wouldn’t rather be killed than be sent to Azkaban.”

Slowly -- slowly -- the anger drained entirely from Sirius’ face. “Ah.” He dropped his gaze; looked up again. “I see, now.”

“It’s not … about that.”

“All right.”

“It’s not.”

“All _right_.”

They stared at each other, hearts pounding, the tension finally dissipating between them.

“There are worse things than death, Sirius.”

“I know,” Sirius said.

Remus shuffled a foot against the floor and shut his eyes, tendrils of heat lapping behind them as though prefacing a migraine. “I don’t _want_ to kill people.”

“I… don’t...” Sirius trailed off, and Remus thought he might have finally, finally made Sirius understand what he was. “I don’t want you to kill people either,” he said instead, shrugging.

“If this war was over,” Remus said, “I would never say those words. Not ever. You know that.” Remus felt suddenly very tired; he trailed a hand against the wall as he slumped slowly to the ground, stretching one leg on the floor in front of him, then the other. “The thing I’m trying to get you to understand, Sirius -- still; _still_ \-- is that I am, and would be, and will be, the wolf. No matter what.”

Sirius got on the floor too, leaned against the overturned table; and with his legs stretched out they were almost touching, yet they remained horrifically far apart. “It was the words that got me, Moony,” he said, exhaustedly, with his fingers loose over his mouth. “It was … the absolute calmness and civility with which you took a man’s life, with nothing more than the flick of your wrist. Like it was the most natural thing in the world to you.” Sirius shook his head. “I understand why you kill when you’re the wolf. It’s primal, and, and instinctual. Biological. This -- the willingness to use their tactics -- I do not get. I do not get it, Remus. We can’t … go there. We just can’t.”

“Sirius,” Remus breathed immediately in exasperation, and he set a hand over the heat behind his eyes, propped an elbow on the armchair beside him, to try to keep it together. “ _Sirius._ Fucking … can you _please_. Stop. Thinking of Remus Lupin. As separate from the wolf. Because then, and only then, will you start to understand, that when I _mean_ to kill a man -- Sirius, hear me -- when I mean to kill a man, it is coming from the exact same place within me, either way, whether I appear as a human being or as a wolf.” 

Remus removed the hand and turned his head on a swivel point against the wall, letting it slump over his shoulder, his eyes setting themselves impressively upon Sirius. “The part of me that says _Avad_ \-- that curse -- as heartfully as I did, is the same part of me that tells me to tear out a person’s throat when I transform. It is in my blood to be able to take life from a person and mean to, Sirius. You _must_ understand that.”

Sirius stared at Remus, his face etched with anxiety; concern; a profound sadness. “Does it truly have to be that way?” he asked. Remus shut his eyes against the pain in his voice. “Some people would say the same thing about me, you know.”

Remus, then convinced more than ever that Sirius would never truly understand, sighed and stared ahead. “Well, listen. As you continue to strive to understand what happened today, I want you to consider this: I am not the only Order member who has used that curse. I think you know that.” 

Sirius stared at a point on the floor and nodded. “I do.”

“What does that tell you about them?”

A long, long pause. “That they are willing to do what they have to.”

“Does it have anything to do with _their_ bloodline?”

“No,” Sirius admitted quietly. “Probably not.”

“So let’s not pretend it has anything to do with that,” Remus says. “Either you have it in you to murder, or you do not.” He again lifted his head, and Sirius moved slowly to catch Remus’ eye. “I do. I have it in me. But that situation today? Had everything to do with the war. It had everything to do with keeping Alice alive -- everything to do with keeping the resistance strong. I think the others among us who have been willing or forced to kill likewise did it because life, not death, was the thing at stake. And I think, Sirius,” Remus said, “truly I do, that there will come a point in this war when you will be faced with the choice to smite a Death Eater or let one of your own die.” Remus blinked at Sirius, not unkindly, and Sirius shut his eyes, his shoulders slumped against the table. “And I don’t mean this as an insult, Padfoot. I don’t. But I think that, on that day, you will choose to kill the Death Eater, with exactly as much swiftness and calmness and certainty as I did today.”

Sirius shook his head slowly. “I don’t want to think about that, Moony,” he said.

“And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Can’t we just go to bed?”

“We can,” Remus agreed.

But neither of them moved. Both sat still for a very long time.

It was another four weeks before Sirius finally had to kill someone, and when he did it was to save James’ life.

And he didn’t hesitate.

When they went home, Remus gently removed Sirius’ clothes and crawled into bed after him, neither of them saying a word. 

And after that -- it was normal. They never talked about it again. Neither one of them ever told James or Lily that they broke the Order’s code; and Sirius finally signed the so-called ‘contract’ Remus had drawn up that stated that Sirius would do everything in his power to end Remus’ life if he was ever hauled off to Azkaban.

“There are worse things than death, right?” Sirius said, shrugging, his lips sealing around his coffee cup as Remus looked down at the signed piece of paper on the table.

“There are,” Remus agreed, crowding behind Sirius where he stood over the kitchen sink; and as he tangled their hands together and set his head against Sirius’ hair, he tried to fight his suspicions -- and failed.

  
  
  
  


In the end, Remus has lived longer than he ever thought he would, and it’s Sirius who’s seen Azkaban. If age has changed them at all, it has changed them on death.

They fight bitterly into the night.

“We should tell him,” Sirius says, when the others have scattered and left them alone. “It could save his life.”

Remus shakes his head. “Absolutely not. I’m with Molly on this one. We must avoid it at all costs.”

“At _all costs_?” Sirius looks at Remus as though he is being intentionally dense. “Remus.”

“Oh, really now. You would tell a fifteen-year-old boy he is meant to be killed before the war gets to end?”

Sirius shakes his head and looks at Remus dead-on. “And you would let a fifteen-year-old boy be killed because he is ignorant to the dangers he faces?”

Remus points at him aggressively. “Do. Not. Tell him. Sirius.”

“Remus.”

“You will _not_ put that burden on that boy. He is too fragile. Did you not hear him screaming not three hours ago?”

“All right,” Sirius says, too lightly. “You’re right, _Mooooony_. We don’t tell him he may be a living Horcrux. We continue to take the warning signs that he may be a Horcrux and ignore them outright. We take it on faith that Voldemort doesn’t know and won’t figure out Harry may be a Horcrux, and we continue to shield him from all of this information until the day he is to die at Voldemort’s hand, like his parents, when he finally _does_ figure it out.” Sirius’ tone is too high, too innocent, and he smiles at Remus so emptily that it turns his gut. “Cracking plan! Let’s carry on, then!”

Remus grips the back of the nearest chair and bows his head. “We don’t know any of this for certain,” he mutters into his chest, forcing his tone into a familiar gentility, “and it won’t do to spread the word, especially since Harry is not particularly well known for his cool temper. One surefire way to avoid spreading the notion that Harry is a target of Voldemort is to tell as few people as possible that Harry may be a target of Voldemort.”

“Including Harry himself? We give him no choice and no autonomy in the matter? Hasn’t he had enough of that?”

Remus raises his head again and looks at him, and they hold the other’s gaze for too long to be comfortable. “Here is a point of interest,” he says calmly. “There is absolutely no reason to believe that those of us who are fully-fledged and much more powerful and practiced witches and wizards shouldn’t put the fucking effort in to get to Voldemort before Voldemort gets to him. He can’t get at Harry if we get at him first.”

Sirius shakes his head slowly, all the while maintaining eye contact with Remus. “Now who’s naive,” he says, voice low.

Remus sighs. “So your suggestion is just to tell him and just … hope that Voldemort doesn’t cotton on? What does telling him _give_ him, exactly, except more reasons to land in St. Mungo’s alongside Frank and Alice?”

“We teach him how to fight back,” Sirius says simply. “We teach him how to get out of there alive.”

Remus is blinking steadily, figuring out what Sirius means, and then: “No.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No.”

“Remus!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you telling me that this boy has a target on his head with ‘Voldemort’s Next Victim’ written all over it and you do _not_ want him to know how to strike first?”

“We will not,” Remus says, fighting too hard to keep his voice steady, “teach him how to kill.”

Sirius’ mouth is agape. “It’s _self-defense_! You would have him walk into a battleground with _out_ that knowledge? The whole world is a battleground to Harry! Some Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher you are!”

“Sirius,” he begins again. “Be reasonable.”

“I’m not saying we should teach him all the Unforgivables,” Sirius hastens to clarify. “Cruciatus and Imperius would send precisely the wrong message, those are torture tactics, they are everything that must be exterminated about Voldemo -- what?”

Remus has been caught smiling at him, and he hastens to duck his head. “Nothing, sorry. It’s just -- Is there any word you won’t say anymore? Although, I suppose, it _is_ your house.”

Sirius has softened his gaze, but at this he looks at Remus with false indignation. “How dare you,” he utters, voice low.

Remus’ smile flashes into a grin, just for a second, until he shakes his head and remembers to refocus. “So … I’m sorry. Let me get this straight. You, the man who damn near threw me out the first time I killed a Death Eater using _Avada Kedavra_ \-- you think _now_ that _James and Lily’s son_ should be taught to use it, _just in case?_ ”

Sirius nods. “Yes,” he says, unabashed.

“After _all_ you’ve been through, you truly believe that.”

Sirius’ gaze hardens into something pained and unexplainable, and Remus immediately dismantles his defenses. “Would you believe it if I told you, Remus, that, for all the times I’ve relived the last war over the last 13 years, I did not once feel badly for any one of those bastards I _Avada Kedavra_ ’d into oblivion?” The familiar Padfoot snarl is back, but this time it is lined with deepset wrinkles and scars and accompanied by a vacant gaze in his eyes. “They had it coming. _All_ of them. They had it coming. And I would do any one of them again.”

Remus puts out a gentle hand and tries to calm him. “All right,” he says softly.

“Stop treating me like a dog,” he spits.

“I’m -- all right. Sorry.” Remus drops his hand and they stare at each other, each breathing shallowly.

“My concern--” Remus begins again softly, when he thinks Sirius won’t devour him for speaking -- but then he shakes his head and tries again. “ _Among_ my concerns is that Harry has already had more exposure to this curse than any one person should.” He stares at Sirius unwaveringly. “I am concerned, given his history ... and also given certain abilities he has shown knowledge of, for example, Parseltongue?” Remus smiles thinly as anger flashes over Sirius’ face again. “I am concerned that certain other abilities may enable Harry to do more than … than we should want him to. With powerful curses.”

Sirius stares blankly. “You think he’ll be too good at killing.”

“I think,” Remus says, “that he mastered a Patronus at 13.”

Sirius exhales harshly, though his expression softens. “Well, you taught him,” he mutters. “No surprise he cottoned on quick.”

“Well, by that logic I’ll be equally proficient at teaching him the Killing Curse.”

“Not really,” Sirius says. “A Patronus is good magic. He knows it because he’s got good love in his life, a fundamental disposition toward good. He wouldn’t be able to make one if he wasn’t strong enough to summon thoughts that were fundamentally good.”

Remus puts fingers to the bridge of his nose and squeezes. “Sirius. He thought it was James. His best memory is that he was briefly deluded into believing his dead father might be alive.”

Sirius stares at Remus a second, then bursts into laughter.

Remus is scandalized. “It’s hardly funny.”

“Well. It’s a little funny.”

“Have the Dementors--”

Sirius stares at Remus. “Yes,” he says eventually, when Remus doesn’t go on. “Whatever you were going to ask, yes, the Dementors probably have.”

“I am sorry.”

“Listen. This actually illustrates a crucial point. Do you doubt that _I_ could generate a Patronus, if I had to?”

Remus blinks at Sirius as though he has lost it. “Padfoot. What happened the last time you tried.”

“What? I -- oh, stop talking about that, that was over a year ago! I had _just then_ got out of Azkaban! Christ, look.” Sirius withdraws his wand, and Remus watches as a large shaggy dog bounds around the room upon being summoned.

“All right,” Remus says.

“It’s hardly as though my life has been peaches.” He heightens his voice into a poor imitation of his mother’s. “ _Blood traitor! Abomination! Shame of my flesh!_ Plus all that death and imprisonment that has so brightly characterized my more recent years.” Sirius smiles grimly. “Harry has more than I had. He’ll be fine.”

Remus stares, unconvinced, and Sirius shrugs. “If Harry’s history will dispose him to anything,” Sirius continues, “it will be _meaning it_.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

“That’s exactly what will save his life,” Sirius says. “You don’t want to tell him he’s a target? You know what, fine. But we teach him this regardless.”

Remus shakes his head and sits down. “I cannot believe that knowing how to kill is what will save Harry in the long run. Not at this age. And especially not if he _is_ a Horcrux.” He glances at Sirius. “You heard what happened to Quirrel. There’s no accounting for Voldemort’s strength of spirit. If Harry is made to kill and his heart begins to harden … there is no knowing what may happen next.”

Sirius considers this for a long while, then finally sighs and collapses heavily into a chair across from him, setting his face into an exasperated hand. “I can’t believe you’re siding with Dumbledore over me.”

“I am not,” Remus clarifies, “I am operating in what I truly believe to be Harry’s best interests.”

“Ignorance is in his best interests?”

“So shall we tell him and give him nothing with which to defend himself, then, or shall we risk that he turns into the next Dark Lord? We have talked ourselves into a circle. Dumbledore’s plan is not better or worse than any other.” Remus exhales heavily and rubs a hand over his face. “Besides all of that, Harry may be expelled from Hogwarts tomorrow, and in that case he should absolutely _not_ believe he is capable of killing lest he be detected as an underage, disbarred wizard and wind up in Azkaban himself.”

“Oh, god,” Sirius muttered. “The trial…”

“So it’s best we operate with a contingency that sees Harry under our protection rather than trying to ‘encourage’ him to protect himself.”

They sit in silence for a long while until Remus blinks at him across the table. “Sirius.”

“I agree with you,” he bites. “There is risk to Harry either way, I get it. James wouldn’t want it, I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it. All right? I give in. I acquiesce.”

“I don’t want you to _acquiesce_ , you raise good points.”

“Don’t act so surprised. Azkaban sapped me of good mental health but it didn’t affect my faculties, thank you very much.”

Another hard silence falls. Sirius doesn’t move to be alone, so Remus stays.

“I’ve seen you, Sirius,” Remus mutters after a while. “Don’t think I don’t see you. This is hard for you.”

“It’s beyond _hard_ , Remus. You’ll be leaving soon, won’t you? To go back to the _wolves?_ ”

Remus opens his mouth, then closes it. “Yes,” he says eventually.

“The kids will be leaving soon, the Weasleys, the Aurors -- and I’ll be back here, filth, scum, in this dank hellhole with my mother and that _Kreacher_.” He shakes his head. “Is it better than Azkaban? Tell me, Remus. I’m having a hard time seeing.”

Remus clenches his hands into fists and exerts all the willpower he has not to reach out and grab hold of him, just to let him know he’s still here. “No Dementors,” he says instead, lightly. “Just soul-sucking of a different sort, I suppose. But we’ll all be back.”

Sirius hums angrily, but says nothing.

Remus watches Sirius closely; sees the way his hands clench in and out of fists, tracks the scars on his neck and chest and shoulder from where he had tried to claw into his own veins. “You could escape,” Remus offers. “Come with me to the wolves, or … back to South America, or anywhere. You don’t need to be here.”

“I should be here,” Sirius says. “For Harry. Now more than ever. He needs a safe harbour.”

“Such as it is.”

“Such as it is,” Sirius agrees, smiling lightly. “Besides, Dumbledore would just find me. He might put a literal choke collar on me next time,” he quips, looking up at Remus. “I think he’d get a bit of a grind out of it, too. Depraved old man.”

Remus gives a low chuckle, and Sirius joins in for a moment before retreating again into his personal darkness.

“You know when you told me,” Sirius says after several minutes, “back then, that you could kill -- would kill -- had killed -- that’s when I thought you were a traitor.”

Remus nods thoughtfully. “I know.”

“I never stopped believing that until the day they were dead.”

“I know.” Remus looks around for something to do to occupy his hands and finds nothing. “I’m surprised you let me stay with you that long.”

“I had to,” he says. “I fancied myself a spy. I thought I was getting intel into your operations.”

“And what did you conclude?”

“Nothing, except that you would probably kill me if I pushed any harder.” Sirius laughs, but it’s an empty sound, something that turns over in his throat and never quite reaches the air. 

Remus looks at him and moves across the room, opening the cabinet and pulling a bottle of firewhiskey from out therewith. He gestures at Sirius as though to ask him if he wants a glass; Sirius nods. “For you,” Remus says, enunciating slowly whilst pouring, “it was when you killed that first Death Eater, Solovyev, when he was torturing James. You never looked back after that first night.” He looks up at Sirius and gives him a tight smile. “You signed the paper saying you would kill me if I was ever sent to Azkaban the next day, and I thought it was an open threat.”

Sirius gives a breath of laughter, genuine this time. “Merlin’s beard, Remus. I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Remus laughs back, handing him the glass and sitting in the seat beside him. “I should never have drawn that thing up.”

Sirius takes a sip and shakes his head gently with the weight of his nostalgia. “Christ, this is weird. In fact, I signed it because I thought I’d kill you myself if I ever found proof you could do to someone what James had just gone through.”

Remus raises his eyebrow and takes a slow drink. “I guess we’re getting honest tonight,” he says delicately.

“Too much?”

“Not at all. Maybe now is as good a time as any to -- ah -- is ‘apologize’ too strong a word? -- for not coming in to kill you when _you_ were in Azkaban.”

“No, no, I knew better,” Sirius says tightly. “I knew how you felt about Azkaban, and I could guess how you felt about me. I assumed you thought death would be too good for me.”

Remus stares ahead, and eventually nods; Sirius nods, too. “And if I’d thought you’d done in James, Lily, and Peter after all,” Sirius continues, “I’d have left you to rot, too.”

Remus catches Sirius’ eye, dark and hollow as it is, and holds up his glass in cheers. “At least we have another war to fight,” he says, his voice flooded with irony. “Here’s to getting it right this time.”

Sirius breathes laughter through his nose again, and clinks his glass. “To second chances,” he agrees, tone filled with bitter mockery like Remus’; but also there is a softness as he holds Remus’ gaze for too long, and they sit in companionable silence for a long, long time.

  
  
  
  


It’s another two whiskeys before Remus figures out what he means, and _kisses him._


End file.
